Sunday Mornings...

This summer I started regularly cooking with Mason on Sunday mornings. Sunday mornings in our home are historically pancake mornings. Pancakes are the perfect food for kids to help cook. There are plenty of ingredients to add. There's lots of measuring, pouring, and stirring. It's good busy work. Inevitably, the time will come to actually cook the pancakes on the griddle and Mason will cry, "Mommy! I want to cook more! I want to cook more! More cooking, Mommy! More!". That's when dump flour, water, egg yolks, raisins, food coloring... whatever!... into a bowl and let him stir to his heart's content. Because, while there are alot of great lessons that a kid can learn from cooking (besides how to do something other than boil water when he gets to college), the most importan thing that we get from cooking on Sunday mornings is SILENCE. This is Mommy's sneaky little way to let Daddy get a little shut eye on Sunday morning!

Swim Lessons

August brought 3 weeks of swim lessons. I had seen an article in a local interest magazine about a local woman who runs her own swim school specializing in private and semi-private lessons. She had been doing this for quite some time and had a background in swim and education. More specifically, she had a background in special education. I thought that might be helpful for Mason since he'd been diagnosed with expressive-recessive language disorder. It doesn't really seem to pose a huge issue most of the time (he appears to listen about as well as a 3 yr old!), but when it comes to the water you can't be safe enough! The first week of classes Mason had Miss Tabby teaching him (seen in the pictures). He absolutely loved her. There was one other kid in his class - a little girl who cried and screamed the entire class until the last day. The last 2 wks of class he had Miss Pat teaching him. She pushed him far harder. Mason liked her for most of the first week while the other little girl that was in this class cried and refused to do what she was told... then one day she decided to behave and Mason decided he'd throw fits and pretend he had to pee to get out of the pool! I can't say that the whole experience was a complete waste, though. I kept taking Mason to the pool and practicing with him. He slowly started to let me work on some drills with him... and I noticed that he would go off on his own and practice his skills in different ways than we'd worked with him. He refused for weeks to put his whole face in the water and blow bubbles - which makes it very difficult to get him swimming b/c his body isn't in the right position. I bribed him by taking his to Target to pick out Troublesome Trucks from Thomas (his current obsession) and told him I'd bring him back to get them when he would do "Starfish Face Down". We visited them and talked about them frequently... but he sternly refused until he made up his mind to do it one night in the bathtub. He has also started playing "swim lessons" with his ducks in the tub. He orders them to do different drills and go to the side of the pool. When his "lessons" are done he tells them "Good job! Now go get a lolly pop!" b/c he used to get a lolly pop after every class for his efforts! While I wish we could give lessons another attempt right now, I am glad to have a break from my afternoon ritual of sitting around in 100 degree heat every afternoon!

Top Sail Trip

This past summer Joseph and I had the rare opportunity to go away for a few days together with a few friends of ours. This group, The Haute Mommas (and their haute counterparts), is a group of women I've known online since I was pregnant with the boys. We met on Babycenter.com in a group for people having twins in the same month and have managed to keep in touch over the years. Last year the ladies met up in Hot Springs for a girls' weekend. This year we decided to bring the guys along and hit the beach in North Carolina. We spent 4 glorious days enjoying the (fairly rough) surf, sun (a wee bit too much for some of us!), naps, food, and a certain blue chair. :o) We rented a house on the beach and, though, it was very close quarters, we all got along famously! The weather was fantastic - early 90's with a fair amount of wind. It's fair to say that we never wanted to leave, but we were all ready to see our children by the end of the trip!

Mason Under The Magnifying Glass

June brought our epic trip to Houston. We were gone for the better part of a week. Smack in the middle of potty training I wasn't sure what to expect. Mason had refused to potty on anyone else's potty than ours up until this point, but I brought along the seat adaptor just in case. As fate would have it this was the trip when Mason decided he was done with diapers.... He stayed dry the whole trip. In addition to that bit of luck - we just had a great time. He was just better behaved than I could have ever expected from a kid his age... and so much fun. We swam and swam and just soaked up all the best stuff summer had to offer!

The Kid Likes Cupcakes

So, naturally, where would a kid who likes cupcakes seat himself at a party? Right by the cupcake tray! Mommy & Mason went to a very kid friendly Cinco de Mayo party this year. This is where Mason chose to park himself while he feasted on taquitos and cupcakes. And queso... can't ever forget the queso! Mason found a critical error in the cupcakes, however. They weren't made entirely from frosting! So Mason helped himself to a number of these (actually he started grabbing them so fast that he had touched 2 before I even realized what was going on), but he only ate the frosting so that no one else would want them. Unbelievable! The host, Alisha, was incredibly gracious... but there was a limit. Mason DID get turned back to the kitchen when he tried to take his neon cupcake out into the livingroom on her new carpet! Just a fair warning... if you invite me to your house for an event I'll more than likely have Mason with me.... and we'll be sitting near the food.... b/c he has no shame. He's a growin' boy!

Playing Catch Up!

Ok - so in the interest of keeping things in order... I'm going waaaaay on back to the end of May and starting from the beginning of the summer. You'll get the highlights... that means all the fun stuff. It will look like the best summer of our lives... I love how you can rewrite history through photos and selective memory! :o)

Well, the summer started with a bang! Before school was even out for Mason we were enjoying America's favorite past-time. His school district had school pride night at the minor league field. SUCH FUN! This was one of those rare times that I didn't live by his bedtime... we actually let him stay up a little late. It was worth it. He really enjoyed watching the game and seeing the people from his school. He didn't last the whole game - I don't know that he made half the game before he was about ready to fall over from exhaustion - but it's something he STILL talks about when we pass the field. The Frisco Rough Riders play at Dr. Pepper Field and it's a fabulous facility. It's clean, easily accessible, and has great food & drinks AT A REASONABLE PRICE! Now there is a concept! They normally have some sort of entertaining activities for the kids. The players warm up close to the audience. They do give-aways all the time....If you ever find yourself in N. Texas this time of year you should really go to a game. It's great fun!

The Summer Comes To A Close

I'm not gonna lie. I DO feel a tad bit guilty about taking the ENTIRE summer off from blogging. It was busy. And emotional. I honestly just didn't have it in me to update until now. I thought about it often. I just couldn't do it. I've noticed this about myself. This is apparently what I do when I go through tough times. I didn't get around to announcing it on here, but I was pregnant at the start of the summer. I'd planned on using an ultrasound picture to announce it... but that just wasn't meant to be. As it turned out I never got one I could share b/c I had a blighted ovum. For those of you who have no experience in this area it's when an egg is fertilized, implants, and starts growing, but the fetus fails to develop. The entire experience was VERY stressful since I am a high-risk patient and they wanted to see me right away... it was alot holding our breath for hormones to rise, ultrasounds, blood work and doctor's appointments. Ultimately, my body seemingly refused to believe there was a problem so I had to have a d&c to remove the sac.... All and all a pretty unpleasant experience. I don't even want to go into my feelings about what I've experienced with pregnancies at this time. I just want to move on and hopefully have a successful, normal, term pregnancy next time.

With that ugly news out of the way I hope to catch up rather quickly over the next few weeks. We had a super busy summer filled with travel, swim lessons, trips to the beach and so on... It was really great in that regard! I have lots of pictures of the fun we've shared so I'm looking forward to getting those online soon. Tomorrow Mason goes back to school... and he's quite looking forward to it! So I'm leaving you with the picture of Joseph and Mason at Mason's Meet The Teacher Night! Have a great week and check back soon. I WILL be posting again!